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Two Smudde siblings. One blog. No apologies.

Learning to Do Hard Things

This isn’t one of my posts digging at the bottom of my existentialism, but its definitely a lovely trip to the shoreline of my wandering thoughts. Let’s have a picnic!

I’m still searching for the thing I want to be doing. Not sure what I want to do, or what exactly I want it to do for me, but I definitely feel like I’m searching for my next big thing.

So I’m about to GM my 15th session of Rogue Trader. That is nearly three times as long as my first attempt at GMing. But I think I’ve found my groove- I’ve know what I want the campaign to be, I’ve learned what systems work best for my players, and I’ve compiled the tools I need to keep the campaign at a nice, semi-immersive level.

I really want to keep doing this. When I’m in the right rhythm, and my players are nice and interactive, its a lot of fun.

It’s been giving me an outlet I didn’t even know I needed. I’m a daydreamer. I listen to music and think about cool moments or short little tidbits. And I’ve always done this- in fact, if I listen to a lot of music I used to listen to when I was young I remember what I used to daydream about.

So running a Rogue Trader campaign has sort of made me evaluate the idea that maybe I want to be a story teller. Maybe I should write a book, or pursue GMing professionally, or perhaps try and become a game designer.

It’s also made me wonder whether it would be fun to be an actor/voice actor. I have a lot of fun play acting the characters. Practicing their voices, writing their stories, and trying to really refine how they feel. During Rogue Trader I really want my NPC’s to come across like living, breathing characters.

So writing and acting both sound like a lot of fun. But now I have to learn to write and act.

And its going to be hard. It takes years to get truly good at these things and I get discouraged that I’m discovering these things so late in life. I did my time in college, and now I have to start over.

But I mean- that’s what I wanted to find. Something that I wanted to do and I’m willing to start on the ground and work my way up. I’ve been getting books on writing, and listening to podcasts and stuff. I just have to start actually doing it.

I need more time in the day. I need to take the time to take the time. Things are hard, but the hard things are worth doing.